Global Surge: Unlikely New Hotspots of the Pool World

Duong Quoc Hoang was down 9-6 to Shane Van Boening at the 2023 World Pool Championship. The defending world champion was rolling. The Vietnamese player—ranked 26th globally at the time—looked cooked.

Then Hoang ran four racks straight. Hill-hill. The crowd in the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports Hall went silent. Hoang broke and ran out. The 11-10 upset sent shockwaves through the sport—not just because Van Boening lost, but because of who beat him and where he came from.

That match in February 2023 was the moment the pool world finally understood what the grinders already knew: the map was changing. Vietnam wasn't just producing solid B-level players anymore. They were producing killers who could flat-out shoot with anyone.

And Vietnam wasn't alone. Saudi Arabia. Bosnia. Places that never showed up in brackets five years ago are now hosting majors, filling venues, and forcing every top pro to adjust their travel calendars.

This isn't a trend. It's a tectonic shift. Here's what's driving it.

Vietnam: From Underrated to Unavoidable

Hoang became the first Vietnamese player to win a World Nineball Tour event when he took down the 2024 Scottish Open. That wasn't luck. That was the result of a decade-long buildup that finally hit critical mass in 2024–2025.

The infrastructure is real now. The Hanoi Open, organized by Matchroom Sport and Vietcontent, pulled a 256-player field in 2024 with a $200,000 prize fund. For context, that's two-thirds the total purse of the US Open. The event sold out the Hanoi Indoor Games Gymnasium—3,000 fans packed in, watching Johann Chua defend his title against players from five continents.

But the Hanoi Open is just the marquee. The Ho Chi Minh City Open ran a $110,000 USD WPA-sanctioned event, and the World 10-Ball Championship is moving to Ho Chi Minh City in September 2025. That's three major stops in one country in a single year.

The grassroots scene feeds the top. Walk into 99 Billiards Club in Hanoi during a CPBA qualifier and you'll see what's powering this surge: tight pockets, cheap table time, and players who treat every practice rack like it's hill-hill at the Worlds. The country has always had the hours-on-the-table culture. Now it has the institutional support—the Ho Chi Minh City Billiards & Snooker Federation organizing events, Vietcontent bringing in sponsors, and broadcast deals with Sky Sports UK and Viaplay putting Vietnamese players on European television.

The talent pipeline isn't just Hoang. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Luong Duc Thien, and breakout junior Dinh Chan Kiet are all ranked inside the top 100 globally. That's depth. That's what happens when a scene stops being an anomaly and becomes a system.

Saudi Arabia: When a Billion-Dollar Bet Hits the Felt

If Vietnam's rise is organic, Saudi Arabia's is surgical.

In February 2024, Matchroom Sport announced a 10-year deal to move the World Pool Championship to Jeddah. Not a one-off exhibition. A decade. The kind of commitment that forces the sport to take the money seriously.

The 2024 event ran a $600,000 total purse. By 2025, that jumped to $1,000,000 with $250,000 going to the winner—more than triple what most majors pay out. The US Open's total purse sits around $300,000. The math is simple: if you're a touring pro, you're booking your flight to Jeddah.

The production matters as much as the purse. The event at Green Halls in Jeddah drew 128 players and broadcast to over 90 countries, organized in partnership with the Saudi Arabian Billiards & Snooker Federation and the Ministry of Sport. Van Boening—who's played every major tournament on earth—said it plainly: “This year's World Pool Championship in Saudi Arabia is probably the best tournament I've ever been to in my whole career.”

That's not just about the check. It's about the tables, the lighting, the streaming setup, the organization. When you bring world-class production to a sport that's been grinding on shoestring budgets for decades, players notice. And when local players get to watch Filler, Van Boening, and Ko Pin-yi compete on their home soil, the skill level accelerates.

The Saudi scene isn't trying to build slowly. It's trying to be the center. And with that kind of financial muscle behind a 10-year plan, it's hard to bet against them.

Bosnia: The Room That Wouldn't Quit

Bosnia is the wildcard that finally hit.

The country's had a cue-sport culture for decades, but it's always been regional—strong players, tight rooms, no global visibility. That changed in March 2025 when the European Open Pool Championship landed at Hills Hotel Sarajevo with a $200,000 prize fund and 256 players. It was the first Matchroom Major ever hosted in Bosnia.

The tournament ran March 11–16 in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Sarajevo Canton, and the city didn't just host—it packed the venue. Fans who'd been following the scene for years finally got to see their players compete against the world's best on home felt.

The face of that surge is Sanjin Pehlivanović. Born in 2001, he's an eight-time junior European champion and took silver at the 2022 World Games. By 2025, he was the poster boy for the European Open—a homegrown talent who'd been grinding in Sarajevo pool halls since he was a kid, now headlining a major on his own turf.

But it's not just Pehlivanović. The fact that Bosnia also hosted the Premier League Pool event from March 20–27, plus the Bosnia & Herzegovina Junior Open, shows the infrastructure is there. This isn't a one-off courtesy stop. It's a legitimate calendar fixture now.

What's fueling it isn't oil money or government sports initiatives. It's community. Local promoters who spent years hustling to put Sarajevo on the map. Player-run leagues that kept the scene alive when there was no international attention. And fans who know every player's break pattern by heart.

That's how you build a scene that lasts.

Why the Shift Is Happening Now

Three factors are converging, and they all hit in 2024–2025.

First, streaming killed the broadcast barrier. You don't need ESPN or Sky Sports to matter anymore. The Hanoi Open streamed on Sky Sports UK, Viaplay, and WNT TV. The Saudi event went to 90+ countries. Bosnia's European Open had wall-to-wall coverage. If you can produce a clean stream and get the players there, the audience finds you. Countries that never had traditional media access built their own pipelines.

Second, the money got real. The Saudi 10-year deal—announced in February 2024—represents institutional commitment, not just a publicity stunt. When prize funds jump from $300K to $1M, the entire tour reorients. Vietnam's multi-event calendar proves sponsors see ROI. Bosnia's partnership with the Ministry of Culture shows government buy-in. This isn't speculative investment. It's infrastructure.

Third, the talent was already there. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Bosnia didn't invent their pool scenes in 2024. They've had players grinding for years. What changed is that those players finally got the platform, the competition, and the visibility to prove they belonged at the top. Hoang didn't come out of nowhere—he'd been building toward that Van Boening win for a decade. Pehlivanović didn't spontaneously become an eight-time junior champion. The scenes were real. The world just wasn't watching yet.

What It Means for the Game

The sport's weight is redistributing, and it's making the game sharper.

When Vietnam hosts a $200K event and pulls Americans, Filipinos, Poles, Brits, and Koreans, everyone's game elevates. You're not just playing the same guys at the same four stops anymore. You're facing different break speeds, different safeties, different table reads. The Filipino short-stroke versus the European system player versus the Vietnamese grinder who spent 10,000 hours on 4.5-inch pockets. That variety forces adaptation.

The traditional powerhouses aren't fading—the U.S., the Philippines, Taiwan, and Europe still have deep talent pools—but they're not the only game anymore. The field is widening. The calendar is expanding. And the best players in the world are now expected to compete in Jeddah, Hanoi, and Sarajevo, not just Las Vegas and Manila.

That's good for everyone. More events mean more opportunities. More styles mean better games. More prize money means the top 50 players can actually make a living. And more venues mean the sport stops being confined to the same recycled stops and starts reflecting the global game it's always claimed to be.

Where the Table Sits Now

The next time you tune into a final at 3am because the tournament's in Jeddah or Hanoi, remember: this isn't pool expanding into new markets. This is the map finally reflecting where the best action actually lives.

The surprise isn't that Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Bosnia are hosting majors now. The surprise is that it took this long. The players were there. The fans were there. The rooms were packed. All that was missing was the structure, the money, and the visibility.

Now they have it. And the sport's center of gravity is shifting to match the reality that was always underneath—pool is a global game, and the best days aren't happening in the places we expect. They're happening right now, under lights that only recently got turned on, in rooms that used to be invisible.

The players who've been grinding in Hanoi, Riyadh, and Sarajevo for years already knew this. The rest of the world is just catching up.